


That Which Gives Us Courage

by estelraca



Category: Starless - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: Established Relationship, Genderqueer Character, Other, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:53:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28270446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estelraca/pseuds/estelraca
Summary: Khai and Zariya return to the Brotherhood of Pahrkun, as they have done many times before.  Brother Yarit pushes for a conversation Khai's not sure he will ever be ready for, but he has seen in the twenty years since the gods left that history stops for no one.
Relationships: Khai/Zariya (Starless)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2
Collections: Books of Yule





	That Which Gives Us Courage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [malachibi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/malachibi/gifts).



> Happy holidays! I hope you enjoy this.

_That Which Gives Us Courage_

We come home as we left, two wanderers riding with a single pack mule.

Not to Zariya's home, though that will come in time. We receive news of Zariya's home frequently enough on our travels—it is hard for the rulers of a major land to go entirely unknown in the world, after all.

We go to my home, to the Brotherhood of Pahrkun, and my heart aches at the familiarity of the approach. We have seen so very much in the five years since last I stepped foot here. We always do. It seems like there is no end of wonder in the world—both wonder that has passed with the rising up of the gods, and wonder that is new, that belongs solely to this world of mortals.

We have four new books of lore, containing perhaps a hundred more stories than we had when last we walked these sands. The notes that fed into the books were far more numerous, but we try not to let ourselves get too bogged down in unprocessed information before transmuting it into something that might survive the passage of the ages.

We have been doing this for so long now. Twenty-one years since the gods were returned to the heavens. Twenty-one years since we lost so many friends. Twenty-one years since we saved the world.

But only five since last I stood on these sands.

Zariya reaches out, taking my hand without my having to ask for her comfort. We have always been in tune with each other. Two decades of traveling together has made us virtually one body, one mind, one soul.

I cling to her. I shouldn't be afraid of this meeting. There is always a _little_ fear when I come to the Brotherhood, because time has passed, and time is not always kind to these warrior-monks who will always own a piece of my heart. This would not be the first time I arrived to hear that someone I knew has succumbed to wounds or illness or something darker.

Brother Yarit is waiting for us, as he always is. He studies the sand where we become visible, and I can tell the moment he picks us out of the desert. It takes him longer than it did last time, and I can see even from a distance that he is older.

I am not.

Zariya is not.

We still have so much to do, and the rhamanthus act as they always have for the Sun-Blessed even with the loss of the gods.

Zariya pulls my hand to her mouth, kisses each of my fingers. “Be calm, my heart. It isn't such a big thing, you know.”

I shiver. “It is and it isn't. But I am glad to be home.”

Brother Yarit offers a hand to help me down from my mount, though we both know I don't need it. Even if Pahrkun's wind didn't still blow through my bones, I stand tall as I have for the last twenty years, while he is starting to bow with age and the passage of time.

I let him grasp my hand and take my weight anyway. It is good to have that physical contact, to be able to trust someone completely who is not Zariya.

“Welcome home, Khai.” He smiles at me as he has every time I've returned.

I enfold him in an embrace. This, too, is tradition with us. I wouldn't have, once. I would have worried about my honor or his, about whether it would damage my or his reputation with the rest of the Brotherhood to see him hugged by his _bhazim_ charge.

I have buried too many friends over the years without getting a chance to properly embrace them. I will not lose any more opportunities to do so.

“What did you bring us, kid?” His tone is just as irreverent and irascible as always, and he moves to the saddle bags, poking through them as I go to help Zariya down to the sand, preparing her canes for her.

“Stories.” Zariya is smiling broadly. She's always liked Brother Yarit, something I wouldn't have expected when first I brought her out here. “As we always do.”

_He is a part of your heart, dear one, and our hearts are one._ Her kiss that day had been just as lovely as the one she gave me this morning. _Besides, I like not being the only one who was given enough power to show how very poorly they fit in the place that was meant to cage them._

Brother Yarit isn't like Zariya. Zariya shattered her cage, leaving her mother and her sisters and all the trappings of the Women's Quarters behind as payment for helping to save the world. Brother Yarit, despite his rough start with the Brotherhood, now _fits_ here in a way I think his younger self would find more terrible than death.

I am glad he's still here. It means I still feel welcome, in a way I fear will fade as the faces of the Brotherhood change with time. Will there come a day when I come home and there is no one here who remembers me as a child? No one who will remember sparring with me as a young almost-adult with aspiration of grandeur?

It must happen. The passage of time says that it must happen. But I do not long for that day, as much as I am enjoying my travels with Zariya.

“Where is everyone else?” Zariya's eyes scan the stone structures surrounding us.

“Some are watching.” I point towards where two young faces show, dark smudges against the rock. They immediately vanish, and between their size and the grace of their movement I peg the boys as perhaps five or six. “But the adult brothers...”

“Preparing a proper feast for you. I knew that you were coming, and I knew that you wanted to talk about important things.” Brother Yarit takes one of the saddlebags, settling it over his shoulder. “Would you like to do that now, or after a proper meal and a rest?”

I feel my face burn.

Zariya walks over, moving carefully with her canes as she adjusts to the sand-and-stone environment. “You know better than to try to hide something from the Seer, dearest heart.”

I do. There has not been a visit we paid that Brother Yarit didn't See in his visions, not a time he hasn't been standing here waiting for us as we come.

Are there times he stands here and I do not come? I think of the madness that came upon him with the Sight— _this_ leads to _that_ , if _then_ then _these_ , so many cause and effect diagrams. Surely there must be times I am not so easily predicted.

“Come on, kid.” Brother's Yarit's hand claps gently against my shoulder. “Let's go to my office. We can talk while I look through these new books of yours, see where we want to store them and how many copies we should make.”

“You'll like this batch of tales.” Zariya walks at my left hand, Brother Yarit at my right.

The two of them keep up a steady, pleasant discussion about the places we have been and the stories we have been gathering since last we visited. Brother Yarit has always been fascinated by tales of foreign cities and how they work, and he makes no pretense of his curiosity, plying Zariya with questions. I suspect we will hear a lot of the same questions from Fazarah when we finally make it back to Zariya's home, so perhaps this is good practice for her.

Yarit's office space hasn't changed much. There is more paper than there has been on any of our previous visits, but I know that that's our fault. The Brotherhood has added to their duties the task of copying our books of legend and myth and seeing them distributed far and wide. It will help to keep the memory of the gods alive for a time, which is one of the last services we can give to Pahrkun for his patronage over the centuries.

“Come, sit.” Brother Yarit sits, moving more stiffly than he had last time, though still with more grace than I think a majority of the people his age would manage. “Tell me what's bothering you.”

Zariya settles herself gratefully into a chair, her eyes turning to me.

“We're planning on having children.” I blurt the words out, feeling my face flush with heat.

Brother Yarit's mouth twitches, but he stops any laughter before it is vocalized. “I've known you were considering it, but not that you intended to make now the time. Congratulations to the both of you. I am sure you will be wonderful parents.”

“I'm not.” I can't quite bring myself to look at Zariya. “I am worried about a great many things. We have been enjoying our travels. We still have so many places to visit, so much knowledge to try to find and preserve.” Though the years have already eroded away some truths, I know. Every year that passes will bring the stories we collect further and further from the actual presence of the gods that they enshrine. How long will it be before we're just recording dreams and hearsay that have nothing to do with any of the stars that once walked the earth?

Brother Yarit studies me, his mouth turning down in a frown. “If you don't feel you're ready... I'm sure the two of you have discussed waiting further?”

“We have.” Zariya sighs. “And I will wait as long as there is a sun in the sky, you know that, darling one. But—”

“But Jahno is aging.” My words are harsh, the _just as you are_ hanging unsaid between us all. “If we wish for him to be the father of our children, we cannot delay forever.”

Zariya's sigh is barely audible, her eyes troubled as she watches me. She would spare me any pain she could, I know. But some things are outside her control—like the passage of time, and our place in it.

We could age with our friends. It's within our power to give up the immortality that comes from the rhamanthus seeds. But there is still _so much_ to do, and I do not feel ready for even the _preparation_ for death that is aging.

I have already lived longer than many of the friends I have buried ever managed, and I still feel a child sometimes, small and lost.

Brother Yarit makes a considering sound in his throat. “I can see why that would be an important consideration. But is that truly all that bothers you, Khai?”

“Is it not enough?” My face is already scarlet with blood; it cannot change further.

“I know you, kid. Why worry about one thing when you can worry about many?” Yarit leans towards me. “Out with all of it.”

“I don't know if I want Zariya to be the only one to carry our children.” This truth pulls itself out of me as a breathy whisper.

Zariya startles, turning to study me. “You would... oh, Khai, why didn't you say so earlier?”

“Because I don't know my own heart on this matter, and that makes it difficult to share with another.” I look away from Zariya's searching gaze.

“But that would be lovely!” I can see Zariya's eyes light up at the idea, her heart immediately imagining what I knew it would—a family, half sharing my lineage, half hers; half Sunborn daughters of Anumeht, half Shadow-daughters in whom Pahrkun's wind might blow.

Except no children of Zariya will inherit her ability to grasp fire and lightning in her fist. No child of mine will stand in the desert to face Pahrkun's test—will bear the marks of that trial embedded in their skin for the rest of their life.

The gods are gone. We set them free, those who deserved it and those who didn't.

All we have left is a world.

“Brother Yarit, have you Seen who the next Seer will be?”

Zariya's mouth opens, a little _oh_ of surprise. It's not often I surprise her anymore, and I reach out, grasping her hand and giving it a squeeze.

Brother Yarit leans back in his seat, and I can see both what he has inherited from Brother Saan—the Sight, the Brotherhood, the responsibility and the separation that comes with all of that—and the thief sentenced to die at the Brotherhood's hands. “Do you already know the answer to that, kid?”

“There won't be another one.” I whisper the words, grasping Zariya's hand tight.

Zariya sighs out a breath, offering me a comforting smile. “There are many places where the magic is fading. What does that have to do with us having children?”

“Nothing and everything.” I swallow. “I do not think there will be Sun-Blessed and Shadow in the future, Zariya.”

“I don't think there will be, either. Too much of it is dependent on powers and a world that we are watching fade away.” Zariya tugs me closer to her, knowing that I can move my seat more easily than she can.

I go. There is no reason to resist her, no reason to cause her more pain than what this conversation already will. She has watched her family all go through khementaran, after all. She has seen the immortal become mortal. The fact that the Brotherhood is my family rather than hers doesn't shield them from the changes that have been wrought.

Zariya's fingers stroke through my hair, snagging on some of the snarls that travel has left. “If you don't want children, dear heart, all you have to do is say so. We can keep waiting.”

“You've already waited twenty years.” I rest my head against her, my arm sliding around her shoulders. “I can't ask you to wait longer. I _won't_ , not when we risk losing a father that we know is worthy.”

Zariya's lips brush my forehead. “I'm still not seeing how this all fits together, darling.”

“It doesn't. Not cleanly. It's just...” I raise my eyes to study Brother Yarit, but he is simply watching us, waiting, expression difficult to read. “I want our children to know our family. I want them to know their...”

Brother Yarit's eyes widen.

“Their grandfather.” I smile at the look that crosses Yarit's face—confusion, pride, disgruntled disbelief, all wrapped up in one look. I kiss Zariya's cheek as Yarit continues to process my words. “And that means not waiting too much longer. And I know you want to carry children, but I... I don't know if I do or I don't.”

“I had assumed you wouldn't.” Zariya speaks slowly, her thumb rising to brush my cheek. “I thought... surely it would be too difficult, your body being trapped unequivocally in _female_ mode for so long.”

“I've thought that, too. That I will not know myself. That I will not be able to _protect_ myself and you. And if you think it's a foolish idea, I won't say anything more on it.” I didn't want to say anything in the first place, and I send a scowl Brother Yarit's way.

He seems completely unperturbed by it, his expression having settled on thoughtful as he continues to study me. “You just keep growing, Khai. That more than anything else makes me feel like an old man.”

I give a shaky laugh. “This doesn't make me feel grown. It makes me feel small.”

“I've found that's a big part of being grown. Feeling small but acting anyway, because _not_ acting is a decision with consequences too.” Brother Yarit raises one hand to massage his forehead, and I wonder if he has Seen anything or if this is just the result of staring into the desert waiting for us. “The young person who learned they were _bhazim_ and thought the world was ending... he would not have even considered the things you are.”

“Perhaps that makes him the wiser one.” I lift my hands, palms up. “I don't know what decision to make. I like the way that I am now. I like being able to switch from Khai the warrior to Khai the woman. I like being able to say that I am _male_ and having more people believe me than not. If I were to carry a child... I would lose all that. For two years at least.”

“Unless you were to time matters so that Zariya or a wet nurse could feed the child, in which case it would be a shorter time you would read as obviously female.” Yarit is staring off into the middle distance, and I wish I could see what he sees. Then he blinks, and he is just my old friend again. “I can't tell you which path to take, kid. I would if I could, but there are good things and bad things down each branch.”

I sigh, snuggling into Zariya's side and averting my gaze. “Hence why I haven't made a decision. Hence why I don't like talking about it.”

“The decision exists whether you talk about it or not.” Zariya massages at the back of my neck, where muscles have tensed without my noticing—where once a piece of the world's salvation was nestled. “As Brother Yarit wisely said, to choose not to act is also a decision.”

“It's a decision to keep things the same. To continue as we have been, which has been _happy_.” It has been _healing_ , the travel—it has been a chance for us to live not in the shadow of our destiny but just as _ourselves_ , a chance for us to grieve, a chance for us to _grow_ , even if our bodies haven't aged.

Zariya takes my chin, looks into my eyes, and kisses me.

Her expression says words that she does not need to speak out loud. _Everything is changing anyway. We are recording that change, watching it unfold, trying to guide it. We cannot remain untouched by change anymore than the rest can._

I know that she is right—that they are both right.

I know that I will need to make a decision.

I just don't know what the _right_ decision is.

Perhaps because there is no right one. Just decisions, and consequences, and opportunities for change and growth.

“You'll be a good father.” Brother Yarit levers himself back to his feet, reaching out to pat my knee. “You'll be a good mother, too, if that's what you want. But you don't have to decide right away which you want. Unless you two are feeling particularly bold, I would recommend having one child at a time.”

“More would be a lot.” Zariya nods. “Especially if we're not planning on raising the child at the palace or here.”

Khai is glad to see the look of horror she's sure is on her face mirrored by Brother Yarit's.

Zariya sighs, rolling her eyes. “We wouldn't give you a our _baby_ , Brother. We'd wait until they're at the age you usually apprentice.”

“If apprenticing so young weren't important to developing reflexes to the maximum potential I would suggest we not see anyone younger than, say, thirty.” Brother Yarit smiles.

I can't help a snort of laughter. “You haven't always felt that way.”

“I haven't always been as old and wise as I am.” He reaches out to tap my nose, moving slowly, giving me an opportunity to stop him.

I don't.

He smiles. “Come on, kids. Let's go have some fun.”

It's a nice feast that's been prepared for us. The Brotherhood still sees few if any female visitors, so Zariya is a novelty for them, and they treat her with great dignity and respect. She seems to enjoy their attention more than she typically would—certainly more than she would at court.

There's only one or two instances where Zariya has to insist on her own ability to maneuver, the Brothers not quite sure how to handle her infirmities. Though a brother is occasionally grievously injured, the type of severe, debilitating weakness that Zariya will suffer from all her life is so uncommon as to be legendary.

Zariya makes it clear that she neither needs nor wants their assistance, though, and they listen.

Brother Yarit makes it a point to circulate throughout the celebration, telling a story here or there, encouraging the brothers to ask Zariya about some of the stories we have collected over the last years.

It gives him a chance to speak to me alone, Zariya the center of a circle of eager faces.

“Grandfather, huh?” He crosses his arms in front of his chest.

I force a smile. “I can call you _brother_ if you'd prefer, but it might get confusing.”

Brother Yarit laughs. “There's going to be a lot of confusion no matter what you do with the children. Your whole life has been confusing.”

It's true in so many ways, from the aching, disorienting realization of my being _bhazim_ , to the prophesied quest that saw the gods uplifted, to the last two decades.

“I...” Brother Yarit clears his throat. “I don't mind, you know. Being called grandfather. Not if it's a child of yours.”

I smile. “I figured you'd tell me if you did.”

“Why, so you could double down on the name?” He chuckles, a low, rumbling, familiar sound. “That's all right.”

“You'd make me stop if you really didn't like it.” We both know it's true.

“Don't give away all my secrets.” Brother Yarit grins at me, though the expression sobers into something softer after merely a second or two. “I think you're going to do great. And I think that you're going to have beautiful children.”

“Think, or _know_?” I move closer to him, hesitantly, not sure how much physical affection he is comfortable showing me here, in the heart of the Brotherhood.

He startles me by gathering me into a tight embrace, his voice a whisper in my ear. “There are too many options for me to _know_ , but all the whispers I hear, all the potentials I see—Khai, you will always be yourself, and you will always have a home here, and your family will always be beautiful.”

Being _myself_ is such a complicated thing. I cannot seem to be merely one thing—I am not male or female; I am a shadow, not complete without my Sun-Blessed; I am a hero who has spent more time gathering tales of others' greatness than seeking my own.

And my home... my home has shifted so much even since my earliest memories. Brother Yarit is not Brother Saan. The Brotherhood that I stand among now is not the same as the Brotherhood of my early childhood, or of my training with Vironesh, or even that I saw five years ago.

The world changes.

Our families change.

But we maintain the connections. We remember. We return.

I lean my head against Brother Yarit, breathing in his scent, feeling his body—still muscled, but frailer than last time I visited this place. “I'm glad to be here.”

“We're glad to have you.” Brother Yarit pulls away. “Come on, kid—share your own takes on these stories. You know what the Brotherhood likes to hear.”

I allow him to guide me back to Zariya's side. She smiles at me, holding out a hand, and I give it a squeeze.

We are home.

We are together.

The world will change around us, but we will change with it, and together... together we will always make sure we have a place to belong.


End file.
